


Sleepwalk Dance

by sabinelagrande



Series: The Goddamned Genderswap [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s03e10 The Return Part 1, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 22:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life on Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepwalk Dance

They try to send her to Nellis, right off. It's not about her and John- she doesn't think it is, anyway- but about trying to do the best they can with what they have.

The SGC has clearly forgotten a few critical things: that Meredith _hates_ all of them; that the _only_ good thing that they've ever done for her was sending her to Atlantis; that they need her way more than she needs them right now; and that it's in their best interests to keep her happy.

So she's still in Colorado Springs, at least for the time being. She isn't cleared for off-world missions, and that almost certainly _is_ about her and John, but it's really not worth fighting about, not when there's so much for her to do here, in the air conditioning, with the fresh coffee.

She and John rent a house together and fill it up. John buys an aggressively large television and Meredith buys every video game system she can get her hands on. Money has completely lost all meaning, debit cards doubly so, and they both have enough back pay that it won't even be an issue for months, maybe more.

Not that Meredith likes to think of their potential time here in terms of months.

John leaves Earth during the day and comes home to her at night, and she tries very hard not to feel like she's become some kind of bizarre interplanetary version of Donna Reed. It's pretty much hell on her, and she's fairly loud about it; it may be worse on John, but he doesn't say anything. He carries it with him all the time instead, wears it across his shoulders and down into the long line of his back, so much that it hurts to look at him. He's gotten quieter these days, if that's even possible; sometimes he just sits on the balcony and stares, like he's pissed off at the mountains.

It makes her think she should have just gone to Nevada, because surely being alone would be better than having to see him like this.

\--

She wakes up at three thirty in the morning on a Tuesday, panicking and sweating, looking desperately around the room. John isn't beside her, and it takes her a minute to realize where she is, where he is, why it doesn't smell like salt air in her bedroom.

She lays back down, staring at the ceiling. Is this what her life is? Left on Earth by her hot-shot pilot boyfriend, sitting up in the middle of the night worrying about never getting to go back to another galaxy? What the _hell_. That's not a mature, real person's life, that's the back of a trashy sci-fi novel.

She is _way too fucking old_ to be dealing with this shit.

She calls in sick- takes a chance and says she's got "whatever's going around", which is usually a safe bet- and tells them not to expect her until after the weekend. She's aware she's holding back the progress of science; but she's also holding back the progress towards her shanking someone in the middle of the lab, which is also extremely important.

She almost- _almost_ \- buys a plane ticket back to Canada, almost flees to her sister's side like she used to do in the old, old days, before Caleb and Russia and Atlantis and everything else. She's checking prices on the internet when she suddenly pictures John's face when he comes back to Earth and finds her gone.

She's so bothered by that image that she stays home and builds him a robot instead- a little one, which is mostly just the Roomba with some extra stuff welded onto it, but a robot nonetheless. John sends it to race around the house immediately, and it's all worth it just to see him smile.

\--

The big breakdown could've happened at any moment.

In the end, it happens in the bread aisle at Smith's.

"Everything or blueberry?" John asks, standing in front of the bagels, holding them up for her approval. "I think we still have a little of that vegetable cream cheese left, but I thought-"

She grabs the packages out of his hands, throwing them to the floor. "I can't do this, John," she shouts. "You can't ask me to-" She pulls at her hair. "I can't do this anymore, I can't stand here and shop for fucking _bagels_ , not when it's _gone_ , not when we can't-"

John cuts her off in mid-catastrophe, just takes her by the shoulders and mashes their mouths together; Meredith's so surprised that her lips keep moving for a moment, still trying to form syllables even though they're tight against John's.

"Two reasons," John says when he pulls away, holding up his hands to ward her off. "One, information security. Two, I figured we were way more likely to get thrown out for yelling than for making out."

Meredith snorts unhappily. "That was incredibly belittling and demeaning."

"Did it work?"

She takes a deep breath. "Yes," she says reluctantly. She presses the palm of her hand to her forehead. "John, I'm sorry, I just-"

He wraps his arms around her. "You've got nothing to apologize for." He smiles at her, tentatively. "Except maybe for the fact that we have to buy all these bagels now."

"Yeah, well." She wipes a tear that she's not crying off of her face. "I hope we never have time to finish them," she says, and John's smile turns sad.

\--

They don't.


End file.
